01 November 2011

'It seemed as though I was being given a brief spell of what I had never known, a happy childhood, and though its toys were silk shirts and liqueurs and cigars and its naughtiness high in the catalogue of grave sins, there was something of nursery freshness about us that fell little short of the joy of innocence.'

Yea, homosexual writers (particularly British ones) during the mid-20th century had to speak in euphemisisms and secret messages. Same applied to Oscar Wilde and the generation he helped influence. So homosexual themes are only indiretly and suggestively discussed. A bit differtent from openly gay writers today -- just read Edmund White, for example (one of his books is called, aptly, "The Joys of Gay Sex").